How to make perfect vegan béchamel sauce

Learn how to make perfect vegan béchamel sauce every single time using this quick and easy, failproof method! Smooth, creamy and delicately flavoured, this vegan béchamel sauce will provide you with the perfect base for so many traditional dishes. It’s an important vegan basic – how can we even contemplate veganising the classics without a decent béchamel sauce?

Béchamel sauce (aka white sauce) is an essential component of many popular dishes like lasagne, cannelloni, and moussaka, as well as gratinated dishes, bakes and savoury pancakes. A sub-par plant-based béchamel sauce spells disaster for the entire dish. You can’t make a great lasagna or moussaka if your béchamel sauce fails to hit the mark.

Let’s face it, a lot can go wrong when making béchamel sauce. From being too thick or too thin, to being lumpy or tasteless… and it’s also renowned for catching on the bottom of the pan if you don’t stir it continuously. We face additional challenges when we have to make it vegan – it won’t brown like real béchamel, it has an unappetising colour, it tastes like cardboard… I know, I know. But what if there’s a way to make a white sauce that looks and tastes like the real thing?

I’ve compiled a foolproof list of tips and tricks that will ensure you get perfect vegan béchamel sauce every time. In 10 minutes, from start to finish!

About this recipe

This is one of the few recipes that I’ve never really modified – apart from making it vegan, of course. The basic recipe is the one I learnt in catering school decades ago. French in origin, classical béchamel sauce is made with butter, flour and milk. This vegan version substitutes dairy butter with vegan butter or extra virgin olive oil, and cow’s milk with a 50/50 blend of soya milk and almond milk, both unsweetened.

This béchamel sauce is delicately infused with nutmeg, cloves, onion, salt and white pepper and can be adapted according to its purpose. Make it nice and thick for moussaka, or thinner for lasagne. Add nutritional yeast flakes for a cheesy flavoured white sauce that you can use for gratinated dishes and vegetable bakes. Follow the tips and tricks below and your béchamel sauce making will be effortless and rewarding.

Tips and tricks for making perfect vegan béchamel sauce

Choice of milk

I’ve tried all kinds of plant-based milk for making béchamel sauce and most of them just don’t cut it. After a lot of experimenting, I settled for a 50/50 blend of unsweetened soya milk and unsweetened almond milk. Why?

Sugar content – If you look at the label on a carton of cow’s milk, you’ll see that it contains sugar. This is a naturally occurring sugar called lactose. Cow’s milk has approximately 5 g of sugar per litre. By using unsweetened plant-based milk, you can decide for yourself just how much sugar you want to add to your béchamel to make it taste similar to dairy. I use one teaspoon (approx. 5 g) of brown demerara sugar to a litre of milk in my recipe. This yields a white sauce as close in taste to the original version with cow’s milk as you’ll get.

Flavour – When you first become vegan, plant-based milks are hard to get used to. Fortunately, our taste buds change quite quickly and what initially seemed undrinkable, somehow becomes palatable and sometimes even quite nice. The aim here, though, is to achieve a vegan béchamel sauce that’s impossible to distinguish from the real thing.

Soya milk has the right consistency but tastes a bit like cardboard. Mix good quality soya milk with almond milk, though, and the taste is far more similar to dairy milk. Don’t worry about it tasting of almonds. It absolutely does not, especially once the béchamel is finished.

Colour – Another reason for choosing almond milk is because it’s pure white. When mixed with soya milk, it assumes the colour of cow’s milk. Taste might be everything (well, actually it’s not) – appearance is just as important. Especially if you’re entertaining guests. A beige-coloured white sauce isn’t going to wow anyone.

Fat content – butter or oil?

Classical béchamel sauce is made with 100 g of butter and 100 g of flour to one litre of milk. So what’s with the oil? Well… Although I am a fan of vegan butter, I choose oil over butter for béchamel sauce. Why? Because there’s no perceivable difference in taste. When I can’t taste the difference, I go for the healthier alternative by default. I also reduced the amount of fat by a whopping 40%. Why? Because you can’t taste the difference and 10% fat is a lot. (Traditionally the proportions are 100 g butter, 100 g flour and 1000 g milk, hence the 10 %.) In the days when béchamel sauce was invented, they didn’t know any better. Now we do, so it makes sense to look after our health wherever we can without compromising on taste.

Hot milk or cold milk?

Cold! Using cold ingredients makes the job sooo much easier. This is another reason for using oil and not butter. You need to heat the butter up to melt it. Starting with hot ingredients is the main reason why it’s such hard work and you sometimes end up with lumps. Mixing oil and flour and then adding cold milk (room temperature is also fine) ensures that you won’t have to add your milk a little a little at a time and beat it to death to stop lumps from forming. You simply mix the cold ingredients with a manual whisk or wooden spoon for about 10 seconds until amalgamated and then turn on the heat. This is an effortless, failproof way of making white sauce. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never make it any other way.

Timing

Make your béchamel sauce just before you need it. Making it in advance complicates things because a skin soon forms on the surface and the sauce thickens as it cools. This means you’ll need to put a greased piece of cling film over the sauce to stop a skin from forming. You’ll also need to reheat it and beat it smooth again. It takes longer to do all that than it does to make it from scratch. So, do yourself a favour and just make it as you need it.

How to calculate the correct quantity of vegan béchamel sauce for your recipes

All my recipes will tell you exactly how much béchamel sauce you need. However, below you will find a general guide. The quantities indicated are for 4 – 6 people.

1/2 litre of béchamel for moussaka

1 litre of béchamel for lasagne and cannelloni

500 g of béchamel for gratinated dishes, vegetable bakes, pasta al forno and savoury pancakes.

How to make perfect vegan béchamel sauce (aka white sauce)

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• Plain (all-purpose) white flour
• Soya milk
• Almond milk
• Brown demerara sugar
• Onion
• Cloves
• Nutmeg
• Salt
• Ground white pepper

Method

• Put the oil and flour in a pan. Don’t turn on the heat. Mix the oil and flour with a manual whisk or wooden spoon to form a paste.
• Add the cold milk all at once. Mix with the whisk or wooden spoon until well amalgamated.
• Stud the onion with the cloves and add it to the pan.
• Add the sugar, salt, nutmeg and white pepper.
• Turn on the heat to medium and stir the sauce constantly until it comes to the boil and thickens.

How to use your vegan béchamel sauce (white sauce)

For lasagne

You’ll need one litre of béchamel sauce for a standard 30 x 22 cm dish of lasagne for 4 – 6 people. If you’re using dried lasagne sheets, you’ll need to dilute the béchamel sauce with an additional 50 – 100 ml/g of milk. Add it right at the end, once the sauce has come to a boil and thickened properly. With fresh pasta, you’ll be fine with this recipe just as it is.

If I want a cheesy béchamel sauce, I add a tablespoon of nutritional yeast flakes after the sauce has come to the boil.

Make sure you leave plenty of béchamel sauce for the top layer. Halfway through cooking, remove the lasagne from the oven and place some thin slices of vegan butter on the béchamel sauce. This makes the top of the lasagne glisten and will ensure your béchamel sauce browns beautifully and doesn’t dry out. Sometimes I also sprinkle my homemade vegan parmesan cheese over the top. You’ll find the recipe for that here.

For moussaka

Moussaka requires a thick bécamel sauce. Traditionally, this is achieved by adding egg. Actually, egg isn’t necessary at all. Just follow these guidelines, and your vegan bécamel sauce will sit perfectly on top of your moussaka and it won’t run when you cut it. You’ll need 1/2 litre of béchamel sauce for a standard 30 x 22 cm dish of moussaka for 4 – 6 people. Reduce the amount of milk by 10 %, for example from 1 litre to 900 ml/g. Follow the instructions in the recipe card below and add some slices of vegan butter halfway through cooking, as for lasagne above. Once cooked, remove the moussaka from the oven and leave it to stand for 10 minutes before cutting it. This allows the béchamel to cool down and thicken.

For aubergine parmigiana

You’ll need a quarter of a litre (250 ml) of béchamel sauce for vegan aubergine parmigiana. In the recipe, which you will find here, the thick béchamel sauce replicates melted mozzarella. A whole heaped tablespoon of nutritional yeast flakes is added as the sauce starts to thicken, giving it a delicate cheesy flavour. Add a few dollops of this vegan béchamel sauce between each succulent layer of aubergine slices for an authentic-tasting parmigiana!

For gratinated dishes and bakes

Generally speaking, half a litre of béchamel sauce should be enough for gratinated dishes and bakes where you only need it for the topping. If you are making a dish with layers of béchamel sauce or macaroni cheese, then you’ll probably need a litre.

How to store vegan béchamel sauce

My advice is not to store it. It’s quicker to make it afresh every time you need it. If you really need to store your béchamel sauce, grease a sheet of cling film and lay it over the top of the sauce while it’s still warm. Otherwise, pour it into a glass jar using a funnel and screw the lid on. Store leftover béchamel sauce in the fridge, where it will keep for a few days.

I’m sure you’ll love this vegan béchamel sauce recipe! If you do, it would be great if you could give it a 5-star rating and leave a comment below! It helps other readers to find my content and posts and ultimately makes my blog more successful! Thanks so much for your support! Deborah xx

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